


Courage in the Catacombs

by thenotso_ultiwrit



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Cliche, French catacombs, Gen, Huelet Week 2020 (Disney)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:56:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27117835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenotso_ultiwrit/pseuds/thenotso_ultiwrit
Summary: The McDuck family brings Lena and Violet on a trip to the catacombs of Paris, but they'd all fallen victim to a trap.
Relationships: Huey Duck & Violet Sabrewing
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	Courage in the Catacombs

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I’m a couple days behind. I keep planning to write these around my schedule, but I’ve been a little preoccupied. Anyway, the prompt I’m late on is: Adventure.

“Why clowns?” Violet asked, nervously glancing at everyone around her. The McDuck family had gone on an adventure in Paris. Supposedly, there’d been a secret treasure hidden deep within the catacombs of Paris and they’d invited Lena and Violet to join them. While Lena had been to Paris once, she’d never been to the catacombs. It had been going smoothly, until everyone had turned a corner. Huey hadn’t seen what happened, his beak buried in the Junior Woodchuck guidebook when it did. When he looked up, everyone started screaming about different things: Dewey about no one remembering him, Donald about how the kids were in trouble, Della about being stranded alone on the moon again, Scrooge started attacking enemies that weren’t there, Lena had ranted about Magica De Spell, Louie just running around and screaming in general, and Violet… Violet had curled up into a ball, which really surprised him. He’d seen the others acting as they were now, but he’d never seen Violet be too far from stoic. He knelt beside her.

“Violet,” he called, trying to get her attention, “Violet, are you okay?” Without responding, Violet shoved him hard.

“Get away from me!” she shouted, retracting her arm. Under normal circumstances, Huey would have been indignant, yelling back to the person who’d attacked while he was just trying to help. But these weren’t normal circumstances.

“Violet, stop!” Huey said, shaking her gently. It was clear that his family was under some sort of delusion, but Violet seemed to be taking it the worst and Huey was determined to help her through it. “Violet, it’s me, Huey!” When she tried pushing him again, he grabbed her wrists, keeping her from attacking him.

“Please, no, just go away!” she yelled, trying to get free from Huey’s grasp. She’d kicked him in the stomach, causing Huey to lose his grip and fell backwards. “You’re not funny, harlequins. You’re just creepy,” Deciding that his words could not reach Violet in any way, he tried a different approach. He pulled a canteen of water from his backpack, unstopping it, and poured it on Violet’s face, hoping the water might snap her out of her nightmare. Instead, she screamed and kicked his leg, knocking him off his feet. Once on the ground, he’d noticed something that he hadn’t before: a red gem on the wall, glowing. Once he’d seen it, he saw something that he couldn’t stand seeing. His entire family, all still in their delusional state, going up in flames. The entire ground was on fire, except for right under him. He screamed for his family, before realizing that none of them had reacted. He knew they were really there but hadn’t been in any pain from the inferno surrounding him. He suddenly realized a great truth.

“This isn’t real,” he noted, looking at the flames. He always felt uneasy around fire. He’d done his best to avoid it on adventures, and even only stayed as close as necessary when at a campfire, but he knew he had to stop the illusions somehow. “This isn’t real,” he repeated, trying to dispel some of the fear he felt. He tried to step forward toward the jewel, but still felt the heat of the fire around him. It scared him senseless and he fell back, scrambling away from the flames. It felt hopeless, trying to move through what looked and felt like real fire, even if he knew it wasn’t. He had been ready to wait for someone else to break the illusion, until he saw Violet, still sitting in the fetal position, mumbling about clowns. Huey rose to his feet and decided that he couldn’t let his friends, or his family suffer as they were. “This isn’t real!” he declared, mustering up as much courage as he could. “THIS ISN’T REAL!” He sprinted forward, keeping his eyes on the red gem instead of the imaginary flames licking his feet. It felt like real fire, every bit as hot and searing as it should be, but Huey kept running, reaching his hand out for the glowing jewel. Once he felt it withing his grasp, he ripped it out of the wall, dispelling the fears everyone had been plagued with.

“What’s going on?” Louie asked first. “Where’d the giant tarantulas go?”

“Aunt Magica’s gone,” Lena said, keeping her eyes on the corners. Donald noticed Huey holding the gem.

“Huey, what’s going on?” he asked.

“I think this gem was making us all see our worst fears,” he answered, handing it to Scrooge. Once it was safely out of his hands, he scanned for Violet, but didn’t see her standing. She’d still been curled up on the floor, her eyes closed to block out the clowns she’d seen. He ran over to her and knelt beside her once again. “Violet, are you okay?”

“Hubert?” she asked quietly, carefully opening her eyes. Once she confirmed it was actually him speaking, she took a cursory glance around. “Where are the…”

“All illusions,” he said, cutting her off. “They were cast by a magic crystal.”

“Nightmare’s blood crystal,” Scrooge said, pocketing the gem. “It’s not all that valuable, never really worth all the grief and hard work it takes to get them,” He sighed, heading back down the path they had taken. Huey helped Violet to her feet, but he could somehow tell she was shaken up, even if she didn’t show it. Once he was sure they were out of earshot, he’d taken the time to ask her.

“I didn’t think you’d have coulrophobia,” Huey said.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Violet responded, keeping her monotone up. Huey knew she’d react this way and decided to tell her his own problem.

“I have pyrophobia,” he said, remembering seeing the floor covered in flames. “I saw everyone else on fire and I couldn’t do anything to help them for a minute,” He couldn’t exactly recall anything about why he’d been scared of fire, but his Uncle Donald had told him of an early childhood incident that may have been it. “I think it might stem from this time when I was still a hatchling. I knocked over a hot pan on accident and it lit the carpet on fire. Uncle Donald put it out before there was serious damage but it still scared me a lot.” Violet’s calm demeanor broke a little, hearing the story.

“It was a clown from my fourth birthday party,” Violet said. “I won’t go into too much detail, but he had issues with my fathers being…fathers. He yelled at me and ruined the festivities. They told me I was inconsolable for weeks,” Huey’s heart broke, getting angry at the bigot who’d decided to take out his issue on a four-year-old girl. “They called the company who hired him and reported him, so he might’ve been fired after that,”

“If you’d like, we can track the guy down and chuck the nightmare crystal in his house,” Huey offered, making Violet smile.

“Sounds exhilarating, but I don’t think Mr. McDuck would be too appreciative of using his prize for childish antics,” By the time they’d left the catacombs, Violet was feeling much better, the fear she’d felt from the illusions left behind.

**Author's Note:**

> I originally planned for Huey to be able to snap Violet out of it, either by just literally shaking her out of it, or by kissing her, but decided against it. I found it cooler for him to walk through fire for her.


End file.
